Updates

It has been a while since the last post, and a lot has changed.

Art

We've almost added in all of the animations. Once they're all in the game, Jen will be going back to do a second pass and refine some of them.

Rune Sets

We have three different rune sets now.

1. SpeedSet – 2 speed runes, 1 offense rune, 1 defense rune
2. DefendSet – 1 speed rune, 1 offense rune, 2 defense runes
3. StrengthSet – 1 speed rune, 2 offense runes, 1 defense rune

I set up a rune set selection scene to allow players to choose their sets before fighting.

Balancing

We've made significant strides in balancing the game. The main focus has been on how runes affect the combat. This entails answering questions like, "How fast do speed runes speed up Drunkan?"

Bug Fixing

There will always be bugs to squash. During our most recent sprint we were able to eradicate some, including:

• jumping getting stuck occasionally
• being able to hold down the left analog stick to trigger smash attacks

10/8 Meeting Minutes

About Last Night…(Alexi’s Feedback)

• Rune Targeting
• ∆ + Left Stick or Right Stick : RB projectile
• RB still can hit player
• HUD Design
• Drop big rune HUD
• Move Changes:
• BB + Forward is now Keg Toss

This Week’s Work Items

• Adam:
• Implement Rune Targeting v1
• Brett:
• Hitboxing animations probably
• Work on charging attacks
• Jen:
• Continuing Body Busters
• Terry:
• Auto-scaling UI with camera and screen size
• Eric:
• Implementing rune shield
• Proper rune art / rune filling

Setting Up the Camera

We decided that it would be cool to have that Super Smash Bros. style camera for Rune Daddies. We want the camera to zoom in on the players when they're close together but zoom out when there's more separation. Like all things in game development, getting the camera movement to function the way we want took a while, but the end result is pretty satisfying.

Additionally, in setting up the camera for Rune Daddies I knew I wanted to make sure that the game would look the same across all resolutions. I modified a script found here to handle different resolutions while maintaining the same aspect ratio.

10/1 Meeting Minutes

Art Timeline

• Estimated 4-5 skeleton animations per week (primary animations in by end of october)
• Goal is to get as many skeletons done as possible, polish them later
• Get that nerd Owen to help us out with background and non-character art

UI Work

• Prepare UI branch for easy merging with other facilities
• Make positioning and spacing on UI behave nicely with player screen (a.k.a. not hard coded)

Art Brainstorming

• Hand-drawn UI elements
• Health bar is beer?
• Health bar is nature?
• Health bar is fire?
• Logo: Font carved in stone

Input & Moveset

• Complete Dhalsim hitboxing for use as test character
• Continue tweaking input for better control and animation

Inputting the Animations

Yesterday Brett and I figured out how to properly control the animations of our stand-in character, Dhalsim from Street Fighter.

Brett prepared a state machine for the animations. We both assumed that we should use transitions to handle switching to an animation and back. Basically, you press the jump key, it sets a bool or a trigger in the state machine, and the state machine transitions from the idle to the jump animation. When the animation ends it transitions back to idle. This seems simple enough, but it had some issues.

The main issue is that we were queueing up animations. An animation may not be able to play immediately, so the state machine would wait until it could transition to the requested animation. This sometimes caused a huge delay between when you pressed a button and when the animation actually played.

The input system that I wrote is a wrapper around InControl, which is a solution for cross-platform controller support. It can handle multiple keys at once and the timing between combo button presses. However, it doesn't play well with animation transitions. Any key you press is immediately processed, so Dhalsim would jump if you pressed up without thinking about whether you were attempting to perform an up attack of some sort. This has to do with how we're constantly checking the input. It would register the up key first and start the jump animation before any other key in the combo could be registered.

The solution for all of these issues was to simply interrupt any animation and play the animation we need explicitly. This will bring its own challenges. We'll definitely have to be aware of defining times in which we don't to be able to interrupt a playing animation. This brings us one step closer to having the gameplay experience that we want.

9/24 Meeting Minutes

Meeting 9/24

Agenda Item 1: Yesterday's Merge Debauchery

• Everything is a-okay boss

Agenda Item 2: Moveset Details

• BB Neutral : Keg jab / punch (combo = jab-jab-swing)
• BB Forward : Overhead smash with keg
• BB Backward :  Shaft backwards
• BB Down : Keg sweep
• BB Up : Keg upper-cut
• 
  
• BB (Air) Down :TBD
• 
  
• RB Neutral : Straight bottle toss (combo = toss-toss-line drive)
• RB Forward : Keg toss
• RB Backward : Fart (maybe a little forward boost? lingering cloud?)
• RB Down : Booze Geyser
• RB Up : Arced Bottle toss
• RB (Air) Down : TBD

Other:Jen’s art looks dope as hell

• Blue box from collider tool to demarcate when/where projectiles appear
• Death animation : see Brett
• Boozey entrance (geyser, surf)

9/17 Meeting

Use Trello Or Waffle?

We've decided to go with Waffle.io because it ties into GitHub more directly and can do milestones and progress easier than Trello.

Music Sell Sheet

Layered music as Fighter loses health
SOUND EFFECTS!!!! That should be our focus
Adam is going to hit up his guy to get some music to try out
Sound Effects: things that feel like classic fighting games
Music: Guile’s theme, but if he was a dirty hobo

Moveset for Fighter #1

Fighter #1 (currently nick-named Druncan) is a filthy drunk of a Druid. He has a massive keg (potentially Keg-Hammer) with which he fights.

Below, BB signifies attacks that inflict damage to the body, and RB denotes attacks that damage runes.

BB Neutral
BB Forward
BB Backward
BB Down
BB Up
BB (Air) Down

RB Neutral
RB Forward
RB Backward
RB Down
RB Up
RB (Air) Down

Development Tracking

We're gonna keep track of development with our blog, which includes:
Individual posts
Meeting minutes (this post)

Breakdown of Animations Needed

On a per character basis, with most being roughed out for timing/feel before getting polished.

Primary

Idle
Walk
Jump
Duck
Getting hit
Knock-down/stand-up
Attack
Attack x3
Attack +forward
Attack +back
Attack +up
Attack +down
Rune Attack
Rune Attack x3
Rune Attack +forward
Rune Attack +back
Rune Attack +up
Rune Attack +down

Secondary

Run/Dash
Evade
Charge Attack
Rune Charge Attack
Aerial Attack
Aerial Attack x3
Aerial Attack +forward
Aerial Attack +back
Aerial Attack +up
Aerial Attack +down
Rune Aerial Attack
Rune Aerial Attack x3
Rune Aerial Attack +forward
Rune Aerial Attack +back
Rune Aerial Attack +up
Rune Aerial Attack +down

Tertiary

Intro
Fatality
Rune rotate
Rune Shield
Turning